Following the phenomenal success of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, business networking sites are now looking to expand their contacts.But, rather than the usual, younger crowds that frequent social networking sites, users of business networking sites are usually older professionals, like Matana LePlae, a mother of two and advertising executive in the US.
LePlae explained to Forbes:
"The whole MySpace culture just passed me by, and there's a whole generation of people that feel the same."
Firms like Cisco Systems are purchasing social network designing software to produce a business networking experience that's similar to the one currently being offered to teenagers and twenty-somethings through social networking sites.
Blogs, photos, video and music are all features of the new business networking sites, much like the usual social networking offerings.
Reid Hoffman, who launched the website LinkedIn in 2003, explained to Forbes:
"At this point, if you come in and upload your address book and connect with people that are here, it doesn't take much experimenting. You can be off to the races immediately and that's one of the benefits of being at a scale of 12 million people."
Proving popular at the moment in New York is, according to Forbes, the art of sharing information about potential hot shares - inviting business networking sites into the realm of established business models.
